An exercise to improve your email marketing strategy

An exercise to improve your email marketing strategy

Often I ask the attendants to come up with the one thing that would help him the most in their email marketing. If they come up with it themselves, that question is sure to deliver the most value to them.

Well actually, most often it doesn’t.

A two part question

It is not easy to define your next best action. Especially if there isn’t an urgent problem, most marketers find it particularly hard. They have some kind of idea, but not very well defined and often can’t give a reason why.

What do you think would help you the most, is a two part question. Because you need to explain “why that is the best thing to do”. And that is even harder if you didn’t do the thinking up front.

But it is also great conversation starter. The question “What would help you the most” helps you prioritize and get started on improving your email marketing. So great material for a training or workshop.

A starting point for your email challenges

Sometimes we (think we) know what helps us the most. But most of the times people don’t know where to begin. Any question that you have, comes from previous knowledge.

Now let’s take this one step further. And apply this rationale to your marketing communication and your clients.

Do you know what helps others, your clients, the most?

Bringing value to email for subscribers and your business

1. Write down the following questions and try to give at least three answers to all of them. You can use a big note book and list all of them. Or cards or post it stickers if you are doing it with a group. Here we go:

What information helps clients to make decisions?

What content can tease or excite them?

What questions might they have surrounding your topics?

What do they like in real life?

2. Now look at your answers and ask “Why?” and “Do I know this for sure?”. This is the real exercise and it could / should be hard. The answers put you ahead of the curve. Bringing you a step further. One step further into crafting an email program that pulls people in because it helps them and you.

Just as a side note: If you have any questions about doing this exercise or any email marketing related questions. be sure to check out the Email marketing Q&A service. It’s free and you will get an answer.

A different state of mind and customer levels

Now you are in a training session / conference / the workplace and someone asks a question that was answered before or you already know the answer to. That answer might be of high value to thim. But not to you. Especially if it competes with lunch or drinks.

What is very valuable to one, might totally be uninteresting to another. It’s the perfect example of the differences between people and segments in your email list. Some are in a different situation than others, might be a half year ahead of the rest of the group. And just to be clear, there aren’t any stupid questions.

So go and ask yourself: “What would help my subscribers out the most?” answer the “Why” and don’t forget, some would rather be at the bar.

Jordie van Rijn is an independent email marketing consultant. Next to helping companies improve their email marketing results he gives email marketing training and is a writer and speaker in the field of online marketing.